Listening to the Kansas LP ‘Two for the Show’ as it plays through for digital conversion to MP3. I still have a few albums to go to complete my project. So far 267 LP’s are done. Over the years I considered many times getting rid of this collection. In my ‘do it as you can program’ over the past two years I have had the great pleasure to replay my collection. Many albums were only played once to record to cassette. I gave away the cassette collection last year, knowing I had the vinyl to back it up. This collection has been the mainstay for my I Pod. Picking songs at random from the files for the I Pod is my SOP. Often times my play list sounds like Q 95’s when they are playing classic rock. Interspersed with that is the easy listening collection, from Abba to Elgin John and beyond. A few Kansas songs still get regular radio play. Wow, what that must be like, to do a song decades ago and get a check for airtime. Called Shirley Evelyn and Helen yesterday, my Dear Aunts to hear their voices and wish them a happy Turkey day. I certainly hope I can get up to see them. What a delight to hear those voices and I had a great visit with each one.
Wednesday night we were at the Hay’s compound and dined on Cajun fare, fabulous, that was a carry in from a nearby Cajun chef. I have come to look forward to dining with Jared and Jocelyn, it is always a real treat and many times a true adventure, whether dining in our out. Jenny made it in late after a very long drive down. Tough getting out of the city on the night before T day as it seems about a million others are getting out to go home and spend time with family or get out of the City for another diversion and we had only a few hours sleep going into Thursday.
Thanksgiving Day 2010, 50’ish temps, rain, wind sometimes, definitely November in Indiana. Of course we have had brutally cold T days and much warmer ones in the past, so I will gladly take this relatively mild one this year. It was just the 5 of us. Vanessa worked most of Wednesday and all Thursday morning. Jocelyn brought yummy stuff, including the addictive mac and cheese dish and some continental cuisine. It was a great day. We ate like royalty, napped like satiated felines, played games, watched football, got a little tipsy and laughed a lot. What a great Thanksgiving we had together.
I have been wearing my compression stocking on the left leg, and Inger reported this morning it looked pretty good. I am still battling back pain and I am sporadically passing blood in my urine. The seepage from the wound is at last slowing and I am getting around better today than yesterday. Now 4 weeks since the surgery and I move slowly. My movement is accentuated by pain at the suture and odd pains internally that are short lived and very sharp. I cannot do a lot around the house yet. Pushing the sweeper or standing for long periods is out of the question. I have set a goal to be doing so good in the business a year from now that I can afford a Consuelo. So I take a pill.
The girls stayed over and Jocelyn and I camped out in the recliners. I caught about 2 hours of sleep but was not too uncomfortable through the night. I took two pain pills at a 4 hour interval but they seemed to have no effect.
We all put on a brave front when we are together but there is a pall that hangs over us, a dark shadow of the animal that lives inside me. Jocelyn called it an ‘emotionally charged atmosphere’, an understatement to say the least in a household with 3 women who are ‘emotionally charged’ to the nth degree normally. It certainly would not take much to reduce me to a sniveling mass that’s for sure. I have only to look at my Girls and dwell for a moment on all that I will miss for the tears to well up. Perhaps what we all need is a good group cry but it is not my way. I cannot allow myself the luxury of such a lapse. My battle demands I stay strong and positive and so I allow myself those moments of weakness when I am alone and apart, and only for a brief time. Brief grief or BF as the two letter acronym for it would go. BF allows me to vent. I know behind my back the girls are tortured but they put up a strong front. Vanessa seems to be bracing for whatever might happen whenever it might happen but I think the Daughters just cannot get their arms around it like that. Only Jocelyn reads my journal here, and she says it is difficult for her, but she is drawn like a moth to the light to read my thoughts as I journey through the process. I wonder if I should ask if we should have a group cry, but the thought of it makes me cry. My battle plan says there is always time for cryin’ so why start it now.
I took Friday off. The Girls went south to Grandma’s and shopping. I visited my extended family in Muncie in the morning, John G stopped by in the afternoon and we watched stupid television and tuned up for the evening. Writing and some play with recent photos rounded out my day. I got about 6 hours of good sleep in. As Vanessa predicted I awoke Saturday late, had some cuddle time and Tucker time and find myself feeling much better with the exception of one thing. Neuropathy struck my left foot with a vengeance leaving me hobbling. I absolutely could put no weight on the left front side. I went back to a 6 hour interval on the medicine yesterday and this morning I have much improvement. Still tender by not so debilitating that I cannot get around.
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